


Destroyed

by YGJK97



Category: Empire (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Competition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YGJK97/pseuds/YGJK97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a father continues to rise, three sons begin their downfall</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destroyed

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, not really edited and I was really hesitant to write for this fandom but I enjoy the show immensely, so I wrote.  
> BTW POV is from youngest to oldest  
> Enjoy =)

\------------H----------  
He wasn’t going to be any less then Jamal.

It’s all he can think about, all he can really process, he doesn’t really know when he became so empty, nothing more than a pawn in a game that should’ve ended a long time ago. It’s old but still alive, still breathing and taking everything away that he considered important in his life, it’s like cancer and he has it. The first person taken away is his mother, the only thing different is that he never knew her, she was never there after that is Andre; he was never close to him, but his oldest brother got consumed by the possibility of being important in a crowd that never wanted any of them in the first place, he shrugged it off, he still had Jamal though. Unfortunately after that was Jamal, that tore him apart from the inside out, it drove him crazy, the brother that stood by him through thick and thin was gone, and just like the punch he received from him, it left him breathless. 

He never actually lost his dad, because he never had him in the first place. 

He was spiraling down into oblivion, he was a pawn in a chess game, not a knight like Andre, not a rook like Jamal, not a queen like Cookie, not a king like his father. He was the first piece that everyone sacrificed first in order to set up the game. He was pathetic, he was a sad kid with mother issues, he was a kid that craved for attention and recognition that didn’t compare him to his father. He wanted the throne even if he turned into nothing more than an empty shell. 

At least everyone would be looking up at him and not down at him anymore. 

\--------------J------------  
Getting his father’s attention.  
That was a recurring thought in his mind, it ashamed him to no end, the man that ridiculed him, that beat him, that was anything but proud of him- he craved that man’s love. It tore him up inside, it made him want to vomit but it also made him want to curl up on the floor and cry for days on end. He had people, friends and family, people that gave him loyalty and yet, deep inside he wanted only his father’s attention. He wanted Lucious to smile up at him with a proud grin and just say “I’m real proud of you son” and he wanted it said genuinely, with the acknowledgment that he was gay. 

Absolutely pathetic. 

He starts to turn into someone he’s not, trying to gain that man’s attention, it’s stupid really on how far he falls. He was never really interested in the company but when his dad once again rejects him, he finds himself fighting for it, fighting for something he once believed was a waste of energy because as long as it belonged to Lucious Lyon, it was nothing more than a selfish and dangerous cooperation.  
He wants to tell Lucious that no matter what he would always be gay and that he would always be the most similar one to him when it came to music, that no one in the family loved music as much as they did. Even if he loses family trying to prove this, turning his back on Andre and Cookie and even more depressingly, Hakeem, and that even if he loses the chance to truly love someone full heartedly, he will still became the vision Luscious wanted the most in Hakeem.  
And he’ll never let Lucious have him, he’ll turn his back the same way his father had a long time ago, and he’ll spit on his grave during the process.  
And he knows that by the time he’s finished doing all of this he won’t be Jamal Lyon anymore, he’ll be as cruel as his father, as selfish and conniving, and he knows in the future that when he would look back on this he would be even more ashamed of himself. But he wasn’t planning on losing, not since he came so far, his father wanted him tougher then he would become his worst enemy. 

The throne was his, even if the cost was losing his true self. 

\-------A------  
Make him proud, make them all see him as a part of the family.  
It’s repeated like a mantra, when he’s soaked under a shower, or when he’s rocking on the bed, or even when he’s destroying things in his house it’s the only thing he can think of. He isn’t talented, he went to college and married a white woman, he has bipolar disorder, he isn’t like his brothers at all. 

He’s the true shame of the family, the true shadow. 

His wife thinks that this isn’t a bad thing that they can turn this around and use it to their advantage, and he wistfully agrees with this, tries to use this even though it only makes him even more torn up. He’s never repaired, never normal or sane, doesn’t have the chance of being ok because he was diagnosed. He knows his father, knows without the man saying it that even though Hakeem was immature and Jamal was gay, a child that is mentally ill has no place for the Lyon family.  
He’s conniving, sly, smart, knows business like the back of his hand, and yet he’s still dismissed as nothing more than a stupid, angry child that has no place in the black community. He’s lied for Lucious, time and time again and still the man doesn’t even care about what he thinks. Its only Hakeem and Jamal, or Jamal and Hakeem- the only two children that belonged to Lucious. He wants to scream, wants to beat the man to a pulp and demand why he wasn’t noticed? Was he really that different?  
Was he not a man because he was mentally ill? 

Sometimes, when his father shuts him out, when his family shuts him out, he hopes the gun in his trembling hand would one day finally work, that it would finally end his life. 

But for now, his main goal was to obtain the company because he worked for it, because he deserved it and he would win it.  
And he will make his father finally acknowledge him as part of the family. 

\---------------  
What this family, these poor lost three boys don’t realize is that Lucious Lyon didn’t care about anyone except Lucious Lyon. You could fight, could scream, could kill yourself- but if it wasn’t happening to Lucious Lyon then it just didn’t matter at all. 

That was the real game, who could get Lucious Lyon to actually care about someone else without an ulterior motive behind his back?

**Author's Note:**

> Wasn't tonight's episode just crazy? It made me so excited and my feels for Andre is getting a bit more serious, I mean Jamal is still my favorite and Hakeem has a special place in my heart, but the pure pain that comes from Andre is compelling. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed, kudos and comments are welcomed~


End file.
